


The movie star and the sea

by littlerhymes



Category: Entourage
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fairy Tales, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-22
Updated: 2007-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerhymes/pseuds/littlerhymes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wishes and mermaids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The movie star and the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [proteinscollide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/gifts).



Eric wakes up in the middle of the night, heart beating so fast it feels like it could thud right out his chest. Beside him Sloan stirs and yawns.

"Another dream, baby?" Sloan asks sleepily. She settles herself a little closer, pulls the sheets back up to their chins. "Go back to sleep."

Eric lies awake for a long time, holding her hand to his chest. He can't sleep for thinking about the dream.

In the dream, he is wading out to sea, he is slipping underwater. The currents alternately pull and caress him away from the shallows, into the ocean deeps where the sun's light is a muted, faded thing. He sees a city there, proud spires rising out of a forest of kelp, and weaving in and out of its fluted towers are shadows, shapes, sleek silvered bodies with rippling hair. The people.

Then he is swimming towards them, closer and closer, gliding through the water smooth as a knife. He's not surprised to see that his outstretched hands are webbed. And he knows, in his dream, that if he were to turn his head to the side there would be another swimming beside him.

That's always when he wakes up shaking.

He can't sleep and it's still hours from daybreak. He leaves the house Sloan's father bought, and heads with unfaltering steps down to the sea. He eases the boat out of the marina full of yuppie speedboats and millionaire yachts. As soon as she's clear he revs the engine and takes her out to deep, deep water.

Out beyond the furthest buoys, the creature with Vincent's face is already waiting. The water slicks off its shoulders and glistens in the coils of its dark hair as it rises from the deep and looks at Eric with wide blue eyes.

"Two more wishes, E," it says, and Eric closes his eyes for a moment because it even speaks like Vince used to speak.

He hates that his hands tremble, gripping the side of the boat, but at least his voice is steady. "Anything, right?"

"You caught me," it says and glides forward in the water. "And you let me go. You can have anything that's within my power to give. Anything at all."

What Eric wants most of all is Vincent back - Vince not drowned but living, never lost at sea - still alive beside him.

He already asked this, two months ago beneath a half-moon when the ropes tangled and caught around this _thing_ , this slick silvery monster with Vincent's face.

The creature had looked at him and said flatly _No_.

Eric had laughed then, because what else could he do? _Fine,_ he'd said. _Then I want a million dollars._

He got the phone call the next day from the executor of Vince's estate. Turned out that after the taxes, after the settlements on family, bequests to charities, legal fees, the rest of it, Eric was the beneficiary of a cool $1.3 million. He held it together long enough to say thanks and then put the phone down and fucking howled.

It felt like blood money. Like Vince was finally dead. He promised himself he would never spend the money, he would never touch a fucking penny. He would never go back for the remaining two wishes.

But then the dreams started... And here he is.

A cloud passes over, a shadow on the moon. In the night the creature's face looks like some hollowed out skull, a dead white thing crowned in weeds. He can't look away.

"I want to be powerful," Eric says at last, "I want success."

Does it sigh? Does it smile? The waves grow choppier, the wind blusters and whips Eric's hood around his shoulders. He squints against the spray as the creature flips and turns, heading back out to sea.

"Wait," he shouts over the rising storm. "Wait!"

It looks back over its shoulder, eyes blank. "Go back home, E," it says. "It's already done."

The clouds open up before he is even half-way back to shore. He stumbles through the back door and seems to bring half the ocean back with him, soaked through to the skin.

But inside Sloan is still sleeping, and the house is just as he left it. The world has not changed. He takes a shower and goes back to bed, burrowing deep under the sheets to shut out the sound of the rain. By the time he wakes up again, hours later, the last night seems like a faded story his mother used to tell him.

It's only after breakfast that he notices that the answering machine's light is blinking, blinking, blinking.

 _Hey Eric. Um, this is Sofia Coppola, I was kinda hoping we could talk..._

Eric sells the rights to Vincent's life story for a sum never publicly disclosed, plus a cut of the film's takings and a credit as executive producer. A hot young star in the lead plays Vinnie Chase like he was another James Dean, and critics the world over swoon.

Though that movie doesn't win any Oscars, the next movie Eric produces takes home five. Not that anyone's counting.

By then Sloan is long gone. Eric has his own house now, bought with his own money, high in the hills of Bel Air though the truth is he's not there very much. Instead he spends a lot of time on the phone, in the car, at the office, wrapping up deals and brokering new ones. He's got a voice now, after all the years spent running at the heels of the big players. He's the guy you have to know, the guy who can get you any movie and into any party. It's a whole big world of yes.

And he still has one wish left.

For years now he has avoided the sea, but not thoughts of it. In his dreams it's always there: the city shining brighter than Hollywood, its streets paved with the purest shining gold, the people with faces more coldly beautiful than any surgeon could ever invent; and the creature, always, so achingly familiar it makes his heart hurt, makes him wake up in the night speaking the name of a dead man.

Even on the podium in front of an applauding audience or in the arms of this month's swimsuit model, it's never _that_ far from his thoughts, fate waiting to pull him under, an inexorable riptide. So it's no surprise, not really, the day the phone in his office rings.

"Hello?" he says. "Hello?"

Nothing at first, and then slowly the sounds of the sea.

The speaker fills up with as though with the rushing of water. In his mind's eye he sees waves crashing, the ocean rising up to drown the land. The sound gets louder still but through the noise it seems he can hear a voice. And not any voice but Vincent's voice, _and he is saying Eric's name_...

And all at once he is falling through the deepest water, he is going down to the very bottom...

And he is not alone.

.  
.  
.

 _They'll come into his office later, but all they'll find is Eric's phone fallen off the hook, and the carpet flooded, and everywhere a great smell of salt and brine. They won't find Eric. No one ever will._


End file.
